LINDA DUVALL Visual and Media Artist

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What They Saw on the Way to the Synagogue on the 26th 0f April 1944

 

During a residency in Lendava, Slovenia, I visited the local synagogue, now a cultural center and a main tourist site. What was curious about the existence of this synagogue was the fact that there was only one elderly Jewish person still living in the whole town. Every other Jewish person had been summoned to the synagogue from various parts of Lendava on April 26th, 1944. From there, they were loaded into trucks and taken to Auschwitz where they all perished.

Besides the synagogue, there was a lack of any acknowledgment of the lives of the various Jewish families, who had been prominent  business owners in Lendava before the war. Feeling the unacknowledged presence of all these families, I retraced the various paths to the synagogue. I researched the ages of the trees on the way to the synagogue that were over 70 years old. While the local people seemed to have forgotten their Jewish neighbours, they had clear recollection of the trees that had been there 70 years ago and more. I photographed all of these trees and printed them in standard snapshot size. Working directly on the photographs, I sanded off any evidence of the present, leaving only the stark trees as a direct link to the tragic but unmarked events of April 26th, 1944.

 

 

This work was presented as part of the exhibition "I was there!” at The Centre for Memory and Testimony Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, Kitchener, ON 2015

 

 

It is also part of this upcoming exhibition:

FRIDAY, JUNE 24TH, 2016 / CORMONS, ITALY
6:00 pm / Società Cormonese Austria Gallery, via Matteotti 14, Cormon, Italy

OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION OF CONTEMPORARY ART PHYSIS & TÉKHNE contemporary artists in comparison with technology and nature in the ‘900 conflicts.

The exhibition will be open from June the 24th to July the 31th, 2016.

ARTWORKS BY O Yemi Tubi, Cosima Montavoci, Anastasia Vepreva, John Atkin, Linda Duvall, Victoria Lucas, Vanessa Gageos, Natalie Vanheule, Daniel Wechsler, Sarawut Chutiwongpeti.